“What’s something people think is fancy, but in reality is trashy?”

If you want to influence, you must first understand.

This is pretty much Persuasion 101. You simply can’t persuade someone unless you first know what that person cares about, because persuasion is ultimately convincing someone that your interests align with theirs so they should buy what you’re selling.

All of which means that sometimes I deliberately spend time on Reddit. It helps me learn the questions people are asking, the topics they’re thinking about.

Not that Reddit is all of society (thank god). But it’s one slice, and as a speechwriter it’s my job to know as many slices as possible.

Anyway, here’s an interesting question I came across on Reddit today:

“What’s something people think is fancy, but in reality is trashy?”

Now, I’m sure there could be a hundred answers to this, but here’s mine:

Moët.

It’s okay – but it’s really nowhere near the best champagne. But it’s got the big name, so people think it’s fancy. When you order it, you’re ‘flexing’, as they say.

But meh.

A far better champagne – which, because it’s little known, is significantly cheaper – is Andre Clouet.

Now that is excellent.

Anyway, what has any of this got to do with speeches and persuasion, you say?

Plenty.

Choosing what’s ‘fancy but really trashy’ is pretty common in speechwriting, too.

I’ve seen a lot of writers come up with ‘brilliant’ ideas and themes and riffs and plays on words. They impress the peoples around them, so they think they must be good.

But the problem is, they rarely work when actually spoken.

Or they use overblown words that nobody would ever use in conversation. And then defend themselves with the old lie that ‘this is a sophisticated audience’, or ‘these are industry terms.’

Only rarely are industry terms a legitimate excuse for complexity, by the way.

Anyway, why don’t these words, phrases, and ideas that seem ‘fancy’ (that is, good, impressive, classy, whatever) work? Why are they, so to speak, ‘trashy’?

Plenty of reasons – but the main one is that hearing and reading are nowhere near the same thing.

People communicate all the time. That means we often communicate by habit, by rote. So if you try to be too clever in your speech, you make people do more work to follow you. Work they’re just not going to do.

Also, most people speak faster than they read – which means they don’t have the same time to connect little references. They don’t notice the riffs – they just get confused.

Oh, and another difference?

Words that seem fine on the page end up sounding terrible when spoken aloud.

I won’t bore you with examples, you can find it out for yourself in five minutes.

Instead, I’ll leave you with this:

Don’t try to be fancy. You run the risk of being trashy. Be simple.

Simple is strong.

And it makes all the difference in terms of authority and impact and image.

But only if you use it.

Whatever the case, if you’re interested in getting professional help in simplifying and strengthening your communications (or training your people to do the same), hit reply and let’s talk.

Alexander